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Super-spreaders of bad information
These doctors and nurses share COVID-19 falsehoods. They can become misinformation superspreaders
What do you do when the people spreading misinformation are the health care workers people trust the most?
by Jason Laughlin and Maddie Hanna
Updated Sep 12, 2021
The number of COVID-19 cases in the county was rising sharply, Scott Levy, chief medical officer at one of Bucks County’s hospitals, tried to tell the crowd at the Aug. 31 meeting of the Central Bucks School Board amid a debate over school mask mandates. “We’ve gone from 10 cases a week diagnosed at Doylestown Hospital first week of July,” he began. The crowd howled..... “to 100, 100 cases a week, “ he continued. “Children could transmit to adults, and the adults ...” Levy never was able to finish his statement over the crowd’s hearty disapproval. The person who spoke before him, Kayla Ottey, who identified herself as a pediatric nurse-practitioner and a parent of a 7 year old, received a warmer response.
She warned of developmental delays, psychological and physiological harm, even suicide stemming from mandates requiring children to wear protective masks. “Maybe I am wrong,” said Ottey, 31, who works at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and said in an interview later that mask mandates cause trauma to children. “And I will never say that I’m right, but with what facts that I have in front of me, and what I’m seeing, and what I experienced, and what I’ve gone through in the last 18 months, that’s my truth.” In fact, scientific evidence indicates masks are preventing disease from spreading, at no risk to wearers. Ottey is among the trained medical professionals touting misinformation about COVID-19 prevention and treatment that, many fear, are discouraging vaccination and even lengthening the pandemic.
“I think it’s an evil thing to do,” said Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It causes people to make decisions that can kill themselves or others.” No less an authority than the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued guidance that face masks are safe for most children over 2 to wear, and that they protect both the wearer and those around them from COVID-19 and other respiratory infections. Experts fear that a deepening distrust of expertise among many Americans, the reach offered by social media, and national politicians who simultaneously promote 2020 election fraud and bogus COVID-19 theories are creating a welcoming environment for doctors and nurses who traffic in dangerous falsehoods that can be both alluring and bewildering given how quickly knowledge of COVID-19 has evolved.
“When are we talking about honest differences of opinion and when are we talking about a flagrant disregard of standards of care?” asked Richard Baron, a doctor and head of the Philadelphia-based American Board of Internal Medicine. “With respect to some of the behavior we’re seeing, it really is in contravention of pretty solid professional science.” Misinformation has fed wishful thinking (COVID-19 is no worse than the flu) or hopes for a quick cure (hydroxychloroquine) since the first months of the pandemic in the United States. This year, vaccines have been a focal point for disinformation, contributing to just 54% of the country being fully vaccinated, well below the number needed to curb the pandemic, Offit said. “That only a little over half the American population has been vaccinated is remarkable to me,” he said. “They think they’re being lied to.”
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/vaccine-mask-covid-misinformation-false-denier-pennsylvania-new-jersey-20210912.html
What do you do when the people spreading misinformation are the health care workers people trust the most?
by Jason Laughlin and Maddie Hanna
Updated Sep 12, 2021
The number of COVID-19 cases in the county was rising sharply, Scott Levy, chief medical officer at one of Bucks County’s hospitals, tried to tell the crowd at the Aug. 31 meeting of the Central Bucks School Board amid a debate over school mask mandates. “We’ve gone from 10 cases a week diagnosed at Doylestown Hospital first week of July,” he began. The crowd howled..... “to 100, 100 cases a week, “ he continued. “Children could transmit to adults, and the adults ...” Levy never was able to finish his statement over the crowd’s hearty disapproval. The person who spoke before him, Kayla Ottey, who identified herself as a pediatric nurse-practitioner and a parent of a 7 year old, received a warmer response.
She warned of developmental delays, psychological and physiological harm, even suicide stemming from mandates requiring children to wear protective masks. “Maybe I am wrong,” said Ottey, 31, who works at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and said in an interview later that mask mandates cause trauma to children. “And I will never say that I’m right, but with what facts that I have in front of me, and what I’m seeing, and what I experienced, and what I’ve gone through in the last 18 months, that’s my truth.” In fact, scientific evidence indicates masks are preventing disease from spreading, at no risk to wearers. Ottey is among the trained medical professionals touting misinformation about COVID-19 prevention and treatment that, many fear, are discouraging vaccination and even lengthening the pandemic.
“I think it’s an evil thing to do,” said Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It causes people to make decisions that can kill themselves or others.” No less an authority than the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued guidance that face masks are safe for most children over 2 to wear, and that they protect both the wearer and those around them from COVID-19 and other respiratory infections. Experts fear that a deepening distrust of expertise among many Americans, the reach offered by social media, and national politicians who simultaneously promote 2020 election fraud and bogus COVID-19 theories are creating a welcoming environment for doctors and nurses who traffic in dangerous falsehoods that can be both alluring and bewildering given how quickly knowledge of COVID-19 has evolved.
“When are we talking about honest differences of opinion and when are we talking about a flagrant disregard of standards of care?” asked Richard Baron, a doctor and head of the Philadelphia-based American Board of Internal Medicine. “With respect to some of the behavior we’re seeing, it really is in contravention of pretty solid professional science.” Misinformation has fed wishful thinking (COVID-19 is no worse than the flu) or hopes for a quick cure (hydroxychloroquine) since the first months of the pandemic in the United States. This year, vaccines have been a focal point for disinformation, contributing to just 54% of the country being fully vaccinated, well below the number needed to curb the pandemic, Offit said. “That only a little over half the American population has been vaccinated is remarkable to me,” he said. “They think they’re being lied to.”
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/vaccine-mask-covid-misinformation-false-denier-pennsylvania-new-jersey-20210912.html
As a note, the doctor quoted in the above - Paul Offit, is also a member of CDC's ACIP and FDA's VRBPAC Committee (the ones that review the vaccine data for approvals).
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